FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT LIFE ESTATE - PAGE 3

Q-In our condominium, the original rules governing the proportionate share of maintenance fees each owner must bear were determined by an "Exhibit B" in the condominium declaration and each owner paid according to the size of his or her apartment. Now, the board of directors on its own, without a vote of the unit owners, has voted a change resulting in all members paying the same fee; small units now pay more and large units now pay less. Is it legal for the president and his board to make a change like this without a vote of the owners?

Q: Fifteen years ago, my parents put my two siblings and myself on the title/deed to their house with the stipulation that they could continue to live in the house for as long as they lived. They are still living, but both have been diagnosed with dementia; my mother is advanced and my father was fairly recently diagnosed. However, for safety reasons (for example, my mother kept falling and my father would forget he could not leave her alone) they have now been living in an assisted living memory care facility for the past 11 months.

Q: We have an unusual situation. When my dad died, he left a life estate in a house/rented duplex to his widow. My sister and I have managed the duplex for 12 years, with all income going for repairs and any surplus to the widow. We would like to be done with it. His widow does not want to move. We are planning on putting it on the market, subject to the life estate. Do you have any guidelines on how much the life estate devalues the property? She is 76, and as far as we know, healthy as a horse.

Q-If I had another name on my property, could that person automatically receive title to it upon my death? Or is there another way to do it? A-To transfer title to your property, prior to death, and still retain the right to use or occupy the property, you need to create a "life estate." The terms of the life estate permit continued use of the property until death. You may use the property just as could be done if the title were held in fee simple (there are a few exceptions, however)

Last week, when I was in Minneapolis, I had dinner at nearby Lake Minnetonka with my good friends Gail and Bruce. They still haven't quite forgiven me for introducing them to each other. But since they've been married more than 26 years with two wonderful teenagers I figure I must have done something right. At dinner Bruce mentioned a life estate he recently bought for $2,000 from his elderly father who now lives in a nursing home. Several years ago his father sold a commercial building, but retained a life estate in his store space on the first floor and an apartment where he lived upstairs.

Q--My mother recently died, and in her will she stated that her spouse of less than four years could live in her home for as long as he wished. The will states that when the house is sold, each of her three children and her husband will share equally in the proceeds. A real estate agent recently appraised the house at about $85,000. Mom lived in this house for more than 32 years, and her spouse has been in this family for less than four years. He, of course, thinks he has a good deal--he can have his housing free, except for paying taxes and insurance.

Capping legal and bureaucratic changes approved recently by the DuPage County Forest Preserve District, a district panel tweaked land acquisition ordinances, trying to quell charges of overzealousness in the district's efforts to buy land. The ordinance, which is restricted to land on which owners have their main residences, requires the district to tell homeowners up front that they can settle a condemnation by the Forest Preserve District with a so-called "life estate." In this settlement, the district pays immediately for the land but allows the owners to live there until they die. Currently, property has to first be condemned by the district before negotiations can begin for such an agreement, said William Maio, chairman of the Forest Preserve District's Finance and Land Acquisition Committee.

Officials in the small Indiana town of Cedar Lake are taking action to make sure a blind woman can stay in the house she lost in a property dispute with an investor who bought her home of 55 years for $43 at a tax sale. The Town Council this week voted unanimously to pursue buying the land from Clayton Pullins, a resident of neighboring Porter County, Ind., who purchased the land at a county tax auction in 2009 and last year moved to evict 67-year-old Dolores Pittman from the house she had lived in since she was 12. The town will use municipal condemnation powers to buy the land - which is surrounded by property that includes the town's government complex and a park - if Pullins refuses the town's initial offer, council President Randell Niemeyer said Thursday.

Q: My wife and I plan to sell our home to our grown children for $400,000, which would be an all-cash deal and we would remain in the home until we die. My wife and I would then pay all expenses in running the house, such as taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, grass cutting, etc. Would this sale structure in any way affect the up-to-$500,000 capital gains exclusion my wife and I would be eligible for in executing this sale? When my children eventually sell this house, will they still be subject to capital gains or losses as the case may be?

Q--I've been renting a house for nearly six years. My landlord never increased my rent. He led me to believe that if he ever sold, it would be to me. I have spent money over the years landscaping and keeping up the house as if it were my own. Now he has just informed me that, because of financial difficulties, he's selling his own residence and needs to move into my house by May. The alternative he offered is for me to buy now and he'd help me...